Getting your hands dirty

"dealing with lost people will cause us to get our hands dirty and sweaty just like tending to yard work. Part of evangelism is to clear up misconceptions and misperceptions people have about the gospel. Dealing with people and evangelism is often messy."


The hardest part of evangelism is stepping out the door and onto the road, because you never know where it will lead. Every facet of our Christian walk is like planting a garden, not just evangelism. It was planned by God to be like that in the first place. It is hard enough to properly prepare the soil and the seedbed for planting. As Christians, we must make friends that are not Christians and we must live a life dedicated to Christ in front of them. We must plant our seed, water our seed, pull the weeds, keep animals and bugs away from the plants and patiently wait for the harvest. In evangelism, one plants, another waters and another reaps the harvest. I worked with a man once whose nephew is a minister. This man took every opportunity to point out all the little things he thought that his nephew and I did wrong. He then would immediately say we both were going to hell. Funny how he knew exactly what sin may or may not entail. He listened each day and would ask questions of us. He would then poked fun at our faith. This man definitely heard the gospel everyday in some way. Did he ever receive Jesus as savior? Not to my knowledge. A group of friends and I did prison ministry at one time. We would bring in pretty girls to sing in order to attract the prisoners to our voluntary event. My friends would preach and I would pray for the men. We ambushed them. Many times people wait until they have a crisis, like going to prison, to call on God. In the middle of an emotional event people make a decision to receive Christ. I ran into a high school friend at one of these prison events. He received salvation at the end and I had the privilege of praying with him. Often, this is when the initial seed is planted. Since there is seldom any follow up, the seed is never watered, fertilized or protected so that a real harvest can be reaped. Fortunately, the prisons have chaplains. We have to take advantage of these emotional events to show the love of God to those needing Christ. As McRaney said, “we want more than just decisions.” Decisions are not commitments. Commitments take spending time and effort with those that need Christ in their lives, so that when the next crisis comes along they will be better prepared to face it knowing they have God with them to overcome that crisis. I have tomato plants growing and producing tomatoes. If I did not plant tomatoes, I would not be able to enjoy my BLT sandwiches.

Community and Relationship

On page eight of The Art of Personal Evangelism by Will McRaney Jr., the author states “it is not enough to (simply) get decisions: we ultimately desire to develop disciples.” I believe that we want to make more than disciples. What we really want is a continuously growing family. A family that builds a community grows together and depends on one another. Furthermore, we desire a community of faith and love. That was God’s original intent when He created the Garden of Eden, the original community. We want to have a community where I can call on a brother that is a carpenter to help me reach my neighbor who is a carpenter because I’m an accountant that doesn’t speak the same language as my carpenter neighbor. We desire for people to develop a close personal relationship with Christ in order to create an extension of the greater body of Christ at large. Someone was made famous a few years ago by writing a book titled It takes a Village. In order to effectively evangelize, it takes a village of believers in Christ. These believers come with different backgrounds and experiences, all walking and working together to reach out to those without Christ. It is a community of interdependent relationships founded on love, trust and respect. To me, the author starts down the wrong track when he emphasizes following “commands” and talking about “lordship”. We are not a society or culture that can relate to the terms “commands” and “lordship”. This is especially true in the postmodern culture referred to by McRaney. America is a country of personal freedoms. I believe that using these terms, undefined, may have the opposite of the desired effect on potential Christians. People are told that they need to make Jesus “Lord” of their life and they instantly become defensive and cold because they do not understand the context. Instead, we need to define the context of the Lordship of Christ and also be examples of the relationship that God desires. This is a relationship built upon love between members of the family of Christ. Jesus said people would know us by our love that we show our family. He did not say people would know us by all the commands we obey. Legalism does not have a place here. We desperately need to go back to the Genesis example of taking a leisurely stroll with our Father and communicating one with another. I have a good relationship with my Dad. That does not mean that we always agree. We sometimes have heated conversations. Regardless of our disagreements, I love him. We talk. He does not stand around and command me and tell me I better do this and that or he will whack me. A relationship of true love, not lordship, will draw hurting people to Christ. We can then build the context of Jesus being Lord of our lives. When Jesus said “if I be lifted up I will draw all people to me”, I do not believe that He was talking about the physical cross itself, but was really commenting on “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son”. Our demonstration of true love, care and concern for the lost will change people and their hearts and lives. Love never fails.


References

McRaney, Will, Jr. The Art of Personal Evangelism. Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2003. Page 8..

Faith, Repentance, and Surrender

In McRaney, page 94, he states "Properly understood and applied, surrender, repentance, and faith describe how to establish a relationship with the living God. However, if any one of the three is emphasized to the neglect of the others, there is a problem and possibly a misleading interpretation of the Gospel. If faith alone is emphasized, one can move to an "easy believism." If surrender is overly emphasized, one can move to legalism. And finally, emphasizing repentance alone can lead to a works salvation. In sharing our faith, we should listen carefully to hear these three facets, regardless of the words that are being used.


II). The three words that McRaney uses to describe an approach to salvation is the foundation of our Christian life. Balance in every facet of our lives is essential to living a Christian life that shows those we are attempting to reach for Christ the difference that Christ is supposed to be making in us and for us. The world around us is looking for someone that lives a life of example. Unfortunately those same people are quick to point out our faults. A careful examination of surrender, repentance and faith will show that we have whole denominations and movements based on each of these three words. As a result you can analyze each of those denominations and readily see where they are missing the other two facets. Each denomination of course claims to have it all. If every denomination were equally balanced we would not have so many and then we could present a unified body of Christ to the world and then we could reach multitudes more people than we are reaching now with all of the divisions the body of Christ has. We must daily surrender our lives, minds, and wills to the will of God, which of course means surrendering our pride. I often tell people that I live at I John 1:9, because it seems I’m constantly repenting for something. Faith is the glue that seems to hold it all together. Of course I am continuously growing in my relationship with my Father in heaven. A balanced approach to our relationship with Jesus is the most important goal we should each strive to have.